


we’re that band (in new york city)

by owlinaminor



Category: Bandstand - Oberacker/Oberacker & Taylor
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-08 23:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11656860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: a series of drabbles about various members of the donny nova band in various notable new york city locations.





	1. grand central station

**Author's Note:**

> listening to "right this way" as i walked through grand central a couple of days ago was such a Big Mood that i got inspired enough for a full drabble series. there will probably be a lot of nick/wayne because that's who i am, but expect some gen stuff and maybe jimmy/johnny, too.
> 
> if you've never been to grand central, the ceiling looks like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/NYC_Grand_Central_Terminal_ceiling.jpg%22).
> 
> title is from "a band in new york city"!

When they reach the center of Grand Central Station, Wayne stops.

It takes Nick a moment to notice – he’s caught up in the swirling crowd and the rising voices and the emerald ceiling stretching far above like an indoor constellation – but once he has noticed, he can look at little else.

Wayne stands, two steps in front of the central kiosk, two steps behind a woman in an enormous red hat checking her watch, two steps beyond a gaggle of schoolkids pointing at some advertisement for cigarettes.  Wayne stands on a polished marble floor, below a constellation ceiling.  Wayne stands, pressed navy suit ever so slightly too loose at the shoulders, spotless trombone case in his right hand, left hand stuck halfway through jamming his hat into his coat pocket.

At times like these, Nick thinks Wayne is an island unto himself.  Or perhaps a ship unto himself – he is captain, crew, and engine, packed into wrinkled forehead over-combed blond hair eyes as deep as the sea.  Wayne is a ship unto himself, or perhaps an entire marine core.

Or perhaps he is only a man in a suit ever so slightly too loose at the shoulders, stuck in the center of Grand Central Station, never learned how to navigate by the emerald stars.

Nick heads toward him, one step two steps three.  As he gets closer, he realizes Wayne’s lips are moving.

“What’re you doing?” Nick asks.

Wayne startles – not expecting a friendly hail.

“Counting the platforms,” he answers after a moment.

He takes his left hand out of his pocket and gestures at the golden block letters ringing the station like so many painted horses in a carousel.

“Why?” Nick asks.

“Because.”  And Wayne looks at him as though this is simple, natural as a joint riff beneath one of Julia’s solos.  “I want to remember everything.”

Nick looks at him – at this ship, this marine core, this man – and then turns slowly, so that his view matches Wayne’s, like a pair of divergent melodies meeting on tonic.

They count the platforms together.  Eye and eye, melody and melody.  After, they end up almost sprinting to catch up with the rest of the band, but it’s alright.  Donny gives them a look that seems to say he understands why they needed to stop, and they walk to the hotel slowly, counting each street light and shop window on the way.

(There are forty-four train platforms in Grand Central Station.)


	2. the strand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to google "did people call each other nerds in the 1940s" for this.

The Strand is eighteen miles of books.

Jimmy pushes through the door and stops, frozen, in the entranceway.  All he can see is books – thick books and thin, colorful and plain, hardcover and paperback, stacked on tables and organized in shelves, displayed proudly and stuck into corners, smelling of paper and ink and glue.  It’s a veritable sea of books, waves of words and bindings and colorful print inviting Jimmy to dive in.

He wonders, for a moment, if he’s dreaming.

And then an old woman in a flower-print headscarf elbows him from behind and informs him in no uncertain terms that he needs to get out of the way.

He stumbles in like a man half drunk, or like a man trapped for years in a cave seeing the sun again, or like – like, God, a _man in a wall-to-wall bookstore._   He heads for fiction first, just to ease in with something familiar, then loses himself in trying to decide which edition of _To the Lighthouse_ to buy (never mind that he already has two) and wondering if he would be able to get through _Ulysses_ if he actually owned a copy.  And then somehow he’s in poetry, reading an entire volume of Frost just because he can – and then he’s in history, pawing through a comprehensive history of the Romanov family, then a treatise on technology in Han China – and then he’s in mythology, unearthing all the sexual histories of the Greek gods – and then he discovers that there are _two whole other floors._

It’s almost six o’clock when Jimmy has to step out to locate a payphone.  He dials an extension backstage at the Rainbow Room, and braces himself for a round of taunting when Davy picks up.

“It’s Jimmy,” he says.  “I need one of you guys to get down here and loan me twenty bucks.”

“Jimmy!” Davy exclaims, his booming voice sounding oddly closer to relieved than to teasing.  “Where the fuck are you?  We go on in an hour!”

“I’m at the Strand,” Jimmy replies.  He twirls the phone cord around one finger, pulling it taunt.  “I told Johnny I was going here this morning.”

“The Strand – you mean that bookstore?”

Jimmy nods, then realizes Davy can’t see him and says, “Not just _that_ bookstore.  _The_ bookstore.  The _greatest_ bookstore known to mankind.  I thought I had enough money with me to buy all the books I wanted, but I’ve narrowed it down as much as I possibly can and I’m still twenty bucks short.  Can you get a cab, and –”

“Jimmy,” Davy says slowly.  “Johnny said you left for this place at ten-thirty this morning.  It’s almost six.  You mean to tell me you’ve been looking at _books_ for _seven goddamn hours?”_

“Uh, yeah,” Jimmy replies.  “Now can you _please_ get in a cab and –”

“He’s fine,” Davy yells to someone away from the phone.  “He’s just fucking nuts.”

“He’s still at the bookstore, isn’t he,” Julia says, her voice muffled by distance.  “I told you not to worry.”

“Who stays at a _bookstore_ for _seven hours?”_ Davy asks, speaking into the phone again.

“It’s a really great bookstore,” Jimmy says.  “It’s the Rainbow Room of bookstores.  The _Sing Sing Sing_ of bookstores.  The –”

“You want to marry this bookstore, we got it,” Donny says.  (A bass can be heard starting to tune in the background.)  “Now cut down your stack and get your ass up here, Wayne’s head would literally explode if we need to start late again.”

Jimmy sighs and hangs up.  It’s painful, but he cuts out the complete works of Shakespeare and a limited edition of his favorite Agatha Christie novel.

And it’s even more painful when his arms nearly fall off toting three full bags from his cab to the Rainbow Room.


	3. riverside park

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went for a run in the park tonight, and this happened.

New Jersey is watching him from across the river.

Davy watches the skyline, twinkling softly like a thousand little Christmas lights strung up along somebody's porch.  His father used to string up lights like that every year on the day after Thanksgiving, and leave them there until the day before New Year's.  They were like a sign to the neighborhood, Davy’s father had said.  A sign that joy lived in this house. Because joy was something meant to be shared, he said, like a beer, or a pie, or a beautiful night.

The winter after Davys father was buried in a factory accident, he tried to set up the lights himself.  He couldn't quite reach the highest beams above the garage, and halfway up a ladder to trying to hook the string just high enough, he fell and twisted his ankle.  The lights hung half-strung, that winter.  Half-strung, half-lit, half-empty.

Davy's bottle is half empty, now.  He's lost track of the time he's spent here, sitting in this park just shy of the Hudson, watching New Jersey.

All the rest of the band is out dancing, tonight.  They're celebrating the newest record, or someone's anniversary, or something.  They invited him.  Of course they invited him.  But he said he had a date, and bought a bottle of whiskey, and walked down to the river.  The grass is scratchy beneath his bare feet, and the crickets are calling, calling, like a baseline waiting for a melody.

Sometimes, Davy thinks he's too old to go dancing.  Too old to stay on his feet all night, twirling beneath music and laughter and lights.  He'd rather watch the lights from a distance, let them shine and shine and catch the tiniest glow.

Davy closes his eyes, and he can picture them all.  Donny dipping Julia, red-faced and heart beating, her heels sliding on the slick wood floor.  Jimmy with his glasses tucked into his pocket, grinning at the sax player's vibrato, law books and exams momentarily forgotten.  Johnny leaning against a wall, wary of his back, beer hanging lazily from one hand as he taps out a rhythm with the other.  Nick with his tie coming undone, pulling Wayne towards a bathroom, smirking like a poet who just found his next rhyme.  Wayne looking around carefully then letting himself be tugged, hands for once not itching to be washed, a light in his blue eyes like sunrise over a river.

Davy’s bottle of whiskey is half full.  He raises it to the sky and toasts to New Jersey.  She winks back softly, softly, and he watches her reflection dance across the Hudson.

**Author's Note:**

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